Why Is This E-Mail From Hillary Clinton Being Called the Smoking Gun?

An e-mail exchanged between Hillary Clinton and one of her top aides, Huma Abedin, is the first publicly released admission from the former Secretary of State or anyone on her team that she used a private email account to circumvent Freedom of Information Act laws.

By now you’ve probably heard that the State Department Inspector General released a report concluding that “Clinton violated the agency’s email rules when she chose to exclusively use a private email server during her four years at State Department and did not promptly turn over records after she departed the agency.”

But it’s a freshly discovered e-mail from 2010 that is generating the most interest. In it, Abedin explains that Department employees are not receiving some of her communications, suggesting “we should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.”

Clinton responds, “Let’s get separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

Think about that for a minute. Clinton, who very recently said she’s been the “most transparent public official in modern times,” told her top aide that “I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

Hillary Clinton expressed concern in November 2010 about the risk of her personal emails becoming accessible after one of her top aides said they needed to discuss putting her on the State Department’s email system.

The revelation of the exchange between Clinton and Huma Abedin was included in a report from the State Department’s inspector general that was released to lawmakers on Wednesday.

The report concluded that Clinton violated the agency’s email rules when she chose to exclusively use a private email server during her four years at State Department and did not promptly turn over records after she departed the agency.

The document also included some details of an exchange between Clinton and Abedin, who both chose not to cooperate with the IG’s investigation.

“In November 2010, Secretary Clinton and her Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations discussed the fact that Secretary Clinton’s emails to Department employees were not being received,” the report said.

“The Deputy Chief of Staff emailed the Secretary that “we should talk about putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.” In response, the Secretary wrote, “Let’s get separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

“The Inspector General’s findings are just the latest chapter in the long saga of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment that broke federal rules and endangered our national security,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “This detailed inquiry by an Obama appointee makes clear Hillary Clinton hasn’t been telling the truth since day one, and her and her aides’ refusal to cooperate with this probe only underscores that fact.”

Jeff Bechdel, America Rising PAC communications director, added “This is a damning report for Secretary Clinton, and this newly released email blows an enormous hole in her year-long ‘convenience’ defense.”

“Clinton set up and used a private email account while serving as Secretary of State for one reason only — to avoid transparency and being held accountable to the American people,” he said. “She admitted it herself in this email to her aide, and any argument to the contrary is purely fiction.”

About the AuthorRusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss is a freelance journalist focusing on the conservative movement and its political agenda. He has been writing conservatively charged articles for several years in the upstate New York area, and his writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, American Thinker, FoxNews.com, Big Government, the Times Union, and the Troy Record. He is also Editor of one of the top conservative blogs of 2012, the Mental Recession.

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